“I won’t say that’s not good news. I’m happy it all worked out. I really think it will be to everyone’s benefit.”
She still had the blindfold on, but he felt her eyes on him, as if they were seeing through the fabric and skin, into his brain or maybe his heart.
“Georgie told me what you said about holding the festival before Brewfest. Did you do this for them?”
It would be easy to say yes—to pretend that his only motivation had been to help the friend he’d hurt. But it wasn’t the full truth, and he didn’t want to lie to her.
“Partly,” he said. “And partly because I want to repair my reputation. But I also like doing a good job. The idea came to me, and it was a good idea. I knew it would work.”
He pulled through the gates, joining a line of cars. Not too bad today, but it was a popular tourist attraction, so the fact that it was a Wednesday was basically meaningless.
He shot a glance at Adalia, but that blindfold made it impossible to read her expression.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” she asked.
“We’ve reached our destination, yes,” he said. “But we’ll be in the car awhile longer. Then I’m going to have to lead you on foot.”
He pulled up to the red-suited attendant, who greeted him, scanned the tickets on his phone, and wished them a good day, all without reacting to the fact that Adalia was blindfolded in the passenger seat. He supposed they’d seen all kinds.
“The suspense is starting to eat at me, Finn. I assume it’s some sort of attraction. Is it a zoo? No, a beer museum!” She paused. “A giant ball of yarn?”
Finn laughed. “Is that what comes to mind when you think of Asheville?”
His heart was beating a little faster in his chest now. He was pretty sure she didn’t know, that it really would be a surprise.
She kept spouting off ideas, each a bit more ridiculous than the last, as he slowly navigated the road.
“Area 51,” she said as he pulled into the parking lot.
“That’s in New Mexico.”
“Nevada, actually,” she scoffed. “But you know what I mean—an Area 51-type place.”
“That you can buy tickets to go see? I’m actually sorry that’s not what we’re doing. I’m tempted to turn right around and find us some aliens.”
“Don’t you dare!” she said, laughing. “Then I’ll never know, and it’ll drive me crazy. Oh hey, you parked the car. Is this the walking part?”
“It is indeed. Wait for me. I’ll come around and get your door.”
He did, and she took his hand as she climbed down, hanging on to it.
“Admit it,” she said, leaning in to him as he closed the door. “You just insisted on the whole blindfold thing so I’d have to hold your hand.”
“I don’t think we need an excuse for that anymore,” he said. “We can’t seem to stop.”
She tripped a little on a twig in the paved parking lot and then gave him a playful shove. “Hey, you’re supposed to be my eyes.”
He started describing the terrain to her, careful not to give anything else away. “We’re stepping onto a gravel path through the woods. There are pines on either side of us. Up ahead, there’s a big group of tourists. We’ll say it’s a family reunion. Or wait, it’s more complicated than that—they discovered after their father’s funeral that he had a secret family. This is the first time the two sides have met.”
“So he’s dead?” she asked. “Man, your ‘Who are you?’ stories are always such downers.”
“Well, maybe they don’t mind so much since he was two-timing them both, but this is their chance to get to know each other outside of him. To be a family again.”
She was quiet at that, and it occurred to him that maybe he’d strayed a little too close to her own experience. To her situation with Jack and her father.
“Or not,” he said. “Maybe…”
But a screech cut him off. He turned to see a woman with aggressively dyed purplish-reddish hair barreling toward him down the twisty trail, dragging a short man with watery eyes and newsboy cap. The man looked reluctant, as if he’d prefer to be back at the hotel reading a newspaper.
“Bernard, he’s kidnapping her! Someone call the authorities!”
Bernard ducked behind her as she got closer, but the big group of people in front of them came to a halt and turned back.
“Hey, she’s blindfolded!” one of them shouted.
A big muscle-bound guy pushed his way through his group, gunning for Finn and Adalia. He wore a CrossFit T-shirt that didn’t bode well for Finn if he hoped to retain his nose in its current shape and size.
“Miss? Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes shooting murder at Finn.
“Haven’t you heard anything about Stockholm syndrome?” Dyed Hair asked, and Adalia snorted in amusement. “Even if she says yes, we can’t take her word for it. Could be he’s brainwashed her. On Private Eyes last week, a woman did unspeakable things for the man who’d kidnapped her.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t a porno?” Adalia asked. She made no move to slip the blindfold down.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the story that keeps me interested, not the sex. Are you here against your will? Hop twice if the answer’s yes.”
“How would that be any different than if she actually said yes?” Finn asked, genuinely curious. But he also wanted to de-escalate the situation. “Maybe you should take your blindfold down, Adalia.”
“Not on your life,” she said in an undertone. “You told me it was going to stay a surprise until the end, and I intend to hold you to it.”
“Are you being kidnapped or not?” CrossFit asked. He sounded kind of sulky about it, like maybe he’d hoped to make it into the paper.
“Hop if you need to communicate without words,” Dyed Hair shouted, as if she feared she hadn’t been heard the first time.
“This is most definitely not a kidnapping,” Adalia said. “And you all are kind of ruining our weird sex thing.”
Finn bit his lip, trying to hold back laughter.
“I knew it was a sex thing!” Dyed Hair said, but she hung back, no longer looking like she was going to barrel into him. Finn had a feeling she was staying behind them on the trail because she intended to watch Adalia’s feet the whole way.
CrossFit stared at Adalia with new appreciation, as if the knowledge that she wasn’t in mortal peril freed him to view her as a sex object.
“Move along,” Finn said, his tone hard.
CrossFit shot him another dirty look, but he rejoined his family reunion or whatever he had going on and kept walking. Good riddance.
Adalia had a huge grin on her face. “Was that part of the plan?” she asked as they resumed walking. “Because if so, well done.”
“No, there are some things in life too perfect to be planned.”
Like stumbling into Dottie’s art studio and seeing Adalia, really seeing her, for the first time.
Would this have ever happened if that hadn’t? He’d like to think they would have connected anyway, but who knew. There was a bit of magic to falling in love, it turned out.
The thought caught him off guard. Was he in love with Adalia? It was too soon, wasn’t it?
They reached the end of the path, and he led her across the street and through yet another gate. The house stood before them in all its enormity and grandeur.
“Are we here?” she asked, her voice a little hoarse.
“We’re here.” And he reached into her mass of curls and gently loosened the blindfold, pulling it away.
She gasped, taking in the enormous stone mansion, which looked like it belonged in another era. That was what he’d always thought about the Biltmore Estate, that it was a place out of time. For a moment, she just looked at it, soaking it in. Then she turned to him with tears in her eyes.
“You brought me to Pemberley.”
And in that moment he knew, with certainty, that he loved her.
Chapter Thirty-One
Adalia wrapped her arms around Finn’s neck and kissed him. Perhaps she should have known there was an enormous mansion sitting on the edge of Asheville, as if airlifted from Regency England, but she hadn’t. She’d spent the last months in a cave, letting time go by without making anything of it. But she was making something of it now, and she didn’t intend to stop.
Finn cupped the back of her head, kissing her softly, adoringly, as if he were marveling that he could. When had a man ever made her feel like this? Like she was someone special?
He pulled back slightly. “I considered suggesting we dress in nineteenth-century outfits so we could pretend we work here, but one, I suspected it would have given away the surprise, and two, a lot of people would probably have tried to ask us questions. I know we’d have fun coming up with ridiculous answers, but I kind of want you to myself today.”
“We’ll do it next time,” she said, grinning from ear to ear as she pulled back and lifted a hand to his face. “Okay?”
He smiled back, his eyes alight with happiness. She could tell he was pleased he’d surprised her, that she hadn’t known. “Deal.”
She kissed him again, so full of joy it felt like it needed to bubble over.
Tomorrow. It could bubble over tomorrow in the studio. She couldn’t wait to see what form it took. If the paintings that had come out of a place of rage and sadness had been good, what would her work look like now?
A thin sliver of fear poked at her. Would her feelings for Finn make her work better…or had adversity actually made her a better artist?
Stop sabotaging yourself, said a voice in her head, one that sounded like her mother. Let yourself be happy.
“The sad part,” Finn said in a grave tone, even though his eyes still twinkled, “is that we now have to wait in line for half an hour before we can go in.” He nodded his head toward the line of people waiting in front of the entrance.
Pulling back, Adalia crooked her arm, offering it to him, then said in a British accent, “We should proceed to the queue without delay, should we not, Mr. Hamilton?”
He laughed. “So we’re doing this part without the costumes?”
She lifted her brow and gave him a stern look.
Linking arms with her, he said in what sounded like a cross between an English and a Southern accent, “Yes, Miss Buchanan, let us go. Posthaste.”
She burst out laughing as they started to walk across the massive front lawn. Could it be called a lawn when there was a fountain in the middle of it? “Is that your version of a British accent?”
“You might find this shocking, but we didn’t have international accent classes in business school.”
“Well, they obviously should,” she said, nudging her shoulder into his arm. “Think how useful it would be to speak to a French businessman in English with a French accent.”
He shook his head, his lips twitching. “Or perhaps he might find it slightly insulting?”
“Why, Mr. Hamilton,” she said, leaning away and feigning a look of reprimand. “Are you being contrary with me?”
He glanced down at her. “Never, Miss Buchanan.” Something shifted in his expression and he said with a seriousness only slightly undermined by his accent, “I never want to be contrary with you.”
She studied him for a second, and some of the uneasiness she’d felt about him, about them, faded. Funny, how she’d mostly forgotten about it over the past ten or fifteen minutes. Then again, when she was with him, she never felt distrustful. It was only when she was away from him that the doubt began to seep in.
Coming to a stop, she dropped his arm, placed her hands on his chest, and stretched up to kiss him. “Thank you for this. All of it. I never want to be contrary with you either.” Then, feeling a little wicked, she added, “Unless it’s fun.”
“Oh, behave,” he said, his eyes full of mirth. He reached for her arm, gently tucking her hand over his forearm again, and they walked in silence for a few seconds. Something between them seemed to have shifted slightly, like they both felt more settled and secure.
She dropped her accent and asked, “Have you been here before?”
“When I was a kid, but I don’t remember anything about it except that my mom got me ice cream for not touching anything inside. I’ve been back once since moving to Asheville, for a meeting with several other brewers, but I didn’t get a tour of the entire place.” He squeezed her hand against his side. “I’m glad I’m doing it with you.”
This was getting too sappy for her comfort, so she lifted her chin and said in her British accent, “Can we take a stroll around the gardens later, Mr. Hamilton?”
“We can do anything you like, Miss Buchanan,” he responded in his British/Southern hybrid.
They played ‘Who are you?’ while they waited in line, skipping over the CrossFit guy’s family reunion, and Finn determined that a man with bushy sideburns close to the entrance was an ax murderer.
Adalia grinned, shaking her head. “Why would an ax murderer be going into the Biltmore?”
“I’m sure there are a dozen places to hide bodies in there,” he said with a serious face. “Perhaps somewhere in the dungeon.”
She took a step back and gave him an inquiring look. “You think they have a dungeon?”
“All these old mansions do,” he said matter-of-factly. “Or maybe he’s here to check out the dungeon to use for his next grisly murder.”
“You do realize that your stories just keep getting worse and worse, don’t you?” she teased. “Should we be concerned about going into a house with a dungeon an ax murderer is scoping out for his next crime?”
“Don’t worry,” he said with a smug smile. “I’ll protect you.”
She nudged her shoulder into his arm again. “Maybe I’ll be the one protecting you.”
He laughed. “I believe that you could. We can protect each other.”
“There’s an ax murderer here?” asked the fuchsia-haired woman with the Private Eyes addiction. She and her husband had filed in behind them, and the woman had been keeping an eagle eye on Adalia. Apparently she’d been listening in too. “You have the police on speed dial, don’t you, Bernard? Keep your hand over the button.”
Adalia leaned closer to Finn. “Look what you’ve done,” she whispered in a mischievous tone. “You’re scaring the other tourists again. If we get kicked out before we even get in, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Then I’ll sacrifice myself to make sure you make it in, Miss Buchanan,” he said in his fake accent.
“I should hope so,” she said. “But I don’t want to see it without you, so you better do some smooth talking if a security guard shows up.”
A man in front of them turned around and lowered his voice. “They have hidden doors, you know.”
“What?” Adalia asked.
“Hidden doors,” the man repeated slowly. “Someone could stash a body literally anywhere. I saw it on the news. The big plant room. The pool table room. The dining rooms. They’re everywhere.” His eyes grew wider as he spoke, although from his tone, it was unclear whether he feared that the mustached man was truly a murderer or if he’d been considering the possibility of hiding a body himself.
“Robert,” the woman next to him snapped. “Those doors lead to other rooms. You can’t very well hide a body in the butler’s pantry.”
Adalia leaned closer and said in a near-whisper, “I don’t know. I’ve seen enough true crime Lifetime movies to know it’s actually possible.”
The man’s mouth formed an O, and he turned to stare at the front of the line. “Which guy did you say was the ax murderer?”
“He’s already gone inside,” Finn said.
The man and woman whispered between themselves—something about visiting the shops and gardens before circling back to the house—and left the line a couple of minutes later.
Finn leaned into her ear. “We’re two people closer to the entrance now. I’m not sure if I should be impressed by your skills or frightened of them.
”
“It was an unintended consequence.” She glanced up at him, their faces inches apart. “And you should be both.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Did you really learn that watching Lifetime movies?”
She lifted a brow. “I’m a woman of mystery, Mr. Hamilton. Stick around and find out.”
“Trust me,” he said in a husky voice. “I intend to.”
A shiver ran down her back, pooling in her core. If she didn’t want to see the house so very much, and with him, she would suggest that they skip the line and return to his place to do scandalous things.
They played ‘Who are you?’ with a few more people, Finn making his characters more and more ghastly. Adalia knew it was because of her earlier statement, and she loved it. She’d only told a few other people about her game. A few had called it ridiculous, others had made a half-hearted attempt to play, and one person had even called it mean-spirited, which wasn’t at all her intent. They weren’t talking about the people they chose, not really. It was about imagination. About creating. And she did think Finn was a creator, whatever he said. He liked building something out of nothing, or using an existing foundation to make a much taller building. She even saw it in his approach to the game. He seemed to get more into it with each new round.
They finally made it inside, and Adalia was instantly blown away by the architecture and grandeur. A staff member was taking photos of the visitors, which they were told they could pick up later (probably for an obscene price), and Adalia and Finn exchanged a look and shrugged.
They posed pointing at each other’s shirts, making wide, cheesy grins.
“Make sure they can see your fanny pack,” he said through his smile.
“Only if your bro bag is on full display,” she insisted.
The attendant gave them the slip of paper to claim their photos, and they moved along.
When she discovered there was a traveling Downton Abbey costume exhibit, she was giddy with excitement. The house was memorable all on its own, full of paintings and sculptures, of design choices both inspired and hideously ugly, but she eagerly sought out the costume displays, Finn watching her with a strange look on his face. Almost like he was trying to soak in her reactions to everything. To soak her in. She read every placard from the costume exhibits aloud to him, and since she’d seen every season of Downton Abbey, she explained the context for each particular costume.
Better Luck Next Time Page 26